


Little Brother

by Eatgreass



Category: Batgirl (Comics)
Genre: 1.6k words of fluff?, F/F, Fluff, becuase he was shitty to her, cass on the other hand loves her batdad, dialogue practice, did I mention that?, steph gets to be mad at bruce, steph is trying her best to be the happy one and cass sees right through it, thats why theyre great, with steph and cass having a conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eatgreass/pseuds/Eatgreass
Summary: Steph and Cass have a conversation about Damian. And trauma, which they both have a lot of.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	Little Brother

**Author's Note:**

> I just write conversations between steph and cass everytime I'm having a bad day

Cass shoved her phone at Steph. “Look,” she said. 

“Oh, that’s so cute,” said Steph, practically cooing. 

Cass giggled. “Which part?”

Steph pretended to think about the question. “Oh, I dunno, how are you supposed to pick a favorite cat?”

Cass snorted and pulled her phone back, along with the photo of Damian and Alfred the cat scowling at her. 

“You know, I was gonna take him to the zoo yesterday. He pretended he didn’t want to go, but he was smiling during the entire exchange.”

Cass frowned slightly and picked at the rug. “What happened?”

Steph scoffed. “B happened.” Cass waited for Steph to elaborate on her previous statement, which she did. “Yeah, he decided that he wanted to spend quality time with his kid for the first time in like, two months, and chose to spend that time on the one day I’d claimed.”

“Oh.”

Steph rolled her eyes and continued, “Also I got scheduled to work that day because one of my coworkers got sick.”

“So it wasn’t Bruce?” Cass asked.

“Well, he did decide to take Damian horseback riding after I bailed, effectively one upping me, so objectively, it’s completely his fault that my week has been such a steaming dumpster fire of shit,” said Steph. 

Cass looked down. “Oh,” she said again.

“Nah, it’s not your fault,” Steph said. “It’s just really been--” she sighed-- “A week, and with my mom the way she is, it’s not going to get better anytime soon.” At this, Steph looked quite sad, and the conversation lulled to a stop. 

“Talk or distraction?” Cass asked. Steph had taught her about this tactic of asking what a person needed, and Cass found it worked rather well on Steph, since Steph needed to discuss her feelings and be distracted from them, and it was anyone's guess which on any given day. Despite Cass’s talent in reading emotions, reading the wants of others was not her forte. 

“Just fucking-- can you talk to me for a little bit?” Steph asked. “I know you aren’t good with words, and it’s okay if you don’t want to, I need a distraction. Yeah,” Steph said more firmly. “Distraction.”

Cass obliged. “One time I was training in the cave,” she said. “Damian-- he came down after me. He didn’t see me. The batcomputer-- you remember? The-- the game.” 

“Cheese Vikings!” Steph said. “Yeah, He loves that game, but he won’t admit it to anybody but Dick.” She smiled at her memory of Damian.

“He was so happy.” Cass said. “Playing.”

“Oh man, do you have pictures? I only have a couple that he’s smiling in, since usually he starts to scowl whenever he notices the camera.” She laughed slightly at this. For all his insistence that he was not a child, he did some damn childish things, such as refusing to have his picture taken, and scowling whenever he found himself caught in a photo. 

“No good pictures.” Cass said. “He saw me. He was so surprised, he forgot to mask his emotions. He looked like-- like an angry kitten.”

Steph burst out laughing. “One time I poured a bucket of water on him while we were swimming,” she said. “He refused to get in the water, claiming that he didn’t want to get in water with the rest of us peasants or some other shit, and so I took one of Tim’s bottles and dumped the entire thing over his head. He looked like an angry, wet, chihuahua!” 

Cass snorted, imagining a Damian without his meticulously gelled hair. “Really,” she thought, “No eleven year old should put that much effort into a haircare routine.” This realization of Damian’s self-consciousness almost made Cass sad, until Steph shoved a phone under her nose. 

“Here,” she said, “Look at this one. He’s playing with the cows in the petting zoo, and he was so excited to see them that he didn’t notice me holding the camera.” She swiped to the next photo in the camera roll. “And this one-- I took him antiquing with me, and he saw a shelf of evidently very valuable glassware. He got so engrossed in explaining what made the particular ware so special that I was able to get a picture.” She paused for a second. “Oh, I did buy the glassware though, let me show you.” She stood up, and pulled down some admittedly impressive looking plates off the top shelf in her kitchen, standing on tiptoes to reach it. She faced Cass. “Damian said it wasn’t radiation or anything that made it antique, so I figure I can eat off of it. I pull it out anytime he comes around for dinner.” She looked very proud of herself at this. 

Cass laughed at the image of Damian sullenly eating something Steph cooked up off of antique glassware. “He forgets to be suspi-” she faltered- “suspicious sometimes,” she said. “He’s still a child.”

Steph sighed. “ Damn, yeah.” She looked down. “This life really messes us up, doesn’t it.“

“Yeah.” 

There were a few beats of silence, before Stephanie perked up and said in a very fake chipper voice, “Well, you probably need to get home, don’t you. Got a dad waiting, brothers waiting and all that. Definitely don’t want to keep Alfred on his toes, huh. See you after dinner for patrol, I guess.”

“I can stay.” Cass said.

“What?” 

“I can stay,” Cass repeated. She motioned to the glassware still sitting empty on Steph’s counter. “Want to eat dinner?,” she asked. 

Steph went strangely quiet, a far cry from her normal, charismatic self. “Yeah,” she said, and after a beat of silence, repeated herself. “Yeah.” It only took a second and Steph was back on her feet, pulling out leftovers and ingredients from various cupboards around her kitchen. She resolutely stood with her back to Cass, and seemed determined to continue her facade of happiness.

Despite how closed off Steph looked, it only took a few seconds before Cass spoke again. “They’re your family too.” Steph turned to look at Cass in confusion. “Damian is your little brother too,” Cass said. “Not just mine.”

Steph laughed in an attempt to ease the tension in the air. “Well, I certainly hope he’s not my brother,” she said. “It would be pretty weird to date my brother’s sister.” 

“No,” Cass said. “He’s your family. He loves you like a sister. They all love you, Steph.” Cass considered for a moment, and then continued, “Even B.”

Steph looked at Cass, exasperated. “Oh my  _ Fuck,  _ don’t even  _ try _ to pretend that asshole has feelings,” she said. “Last week I sprained my ankle on the training bars, and you know what he did? Looked at me while drinking his venti caramel macchiato, like some sort of rich bitch watching television.” Steph gestured emphatically. “I’m ninety percent convinced he’s secretly a robot in a flesh suit.”

Cass laughed. “He’s…” -she struggled to find the right word- “caring.”

Steph started laughing as well, though more at Cass’s defense of Bruce than her own joke. “Sure, Cass, _Sure,”_ She said. “And Lex Luthor’s side gig is a stripper.”

Cass thought. “No,” she said. “Luthor is the pimp. Superman is the stripper.” Her face had turned red from fighting her own laughter, and she was finally unable to keep her poker face, snorting at the ridiculousness of the conversation. 

“Damn,” Steph shook her head. “Damn, the superfam is full of closet strippers, and all we get here are secret capitalists.”

Cass opened her mouth, presumably to defend her family from the utter  _ slander  _ Steph was spewing. 

Steph pointed her fork at Cass, furrowing her eyebrows in a mockery of seriousness. “Until he pays for my medical degree, I get to bully him as much as I want. And since I’ll never let him pay for me to go to college, I get to bully him for the rest of my life.”

Cass did not oblige Steph with a response.“What are you making?”

“Making?” Steph scoffed. “More like heating up. My mom came over two days ago with some casserole she made. I think she feels bad that she’s just now beginning to get involved in my life, so she’s trying to make up for lost time by bringing me food.” 

Cass went silent, and Steph seemed to realize that Cass couldn’t relate in the slightest to what she was saying. Steph covered her mouth. “Oh, man, fuck. Sorry,” She said. “I mean I know I have both mommy and daddy issues, but your parents are actually accomplished super villains. I probably shouldn’t be complaining about my mom’s attempt to make it back into my life.” 

“Not true,” Cass said. “My dad’s Batman.”

“Yeah, but he’s also an utter asshole so I wouldn’t blame you for having issues with him. I mean, I do, and he’s not even my parent.” She tossed the warmed up casserole onto the table unceremoniously. “Bon appetit. Two day old casserole, made specially for you.” She considered. “Well technically, it was made specially for me, but now I’m giving it to you because Alfred made you into a food snob and you need to experience the kind of food us commoners eat every day.”

Cass took an experimental bite of the casserole. “It’s good!”

Steph frowned. “Wait, really?”

“Kind of.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Steph clapped her hands. “Ready for patrol?”

“Nope.” Cass smirked. “Movie night. With Damian.”

“Oh?”

“Right now. Today,” Cass said. 

“Righty-Oh, lets go. I guess. Does Damian know?” 

“No,” Cass said.

On that note, they headed off to see how well they could break into Wayne Manor. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is @eatgreass, and I love steph and cass a lot


End file.
